Mobile Online Casinos: How & Where to Play

There’s no denying that mobile has taken over just about every aspect of our online lives. This goes for the entire online gambling world as well, so it’s no surprise that mobile online casinos are the most popular places to enjoy playing slots, blackjack, and all other types of casino games.

However, with so many mobile casinos online in 2019, it’s nowhere near easy to decide which of them to play at.

We understand that one of the biggest reasons why people love playing casino games from their smartphones and tablets is that they like things to be quick and convenient. They want to a safe and secure online gaming experience, too.

Because of that, we know a lot of people just want to be told upfront where the best options are for their play. That’s why we’ve compiled the following list of the best mobile casinos online today.

Rank	Online Casino	Deposit Bonus	Get Started
#1	Playamo Casino	100% Up To €1,500	Visit Site
#2	Jackpot City Casino	100% Up To €1,600	Visit Site
#3	Spin Casino	100% Up To $1,000	Visit Site
#4	888 Casino	100% Up To €140	Visit Site
#5	Betway Casino	100% Up To €1000	Visit Site

We’ve seen several iterations of mobile technology that have affected casino play. We had the older Java-based apps that looked like something out of an old Atari 2600 commercial, and those were followed by platforms based on Adobe Flash and HTML5. With every one of these iterations has come new mobile casino websites and new ways to play.

Because so much has changed, and because it keeps changing at such a rapid pace, it can seem impossible to stay on top of everything you would need to know to pick out the best mobile online casinos online fit what you’re looking for.

The top mobile casino sites above all come highly recommended by our team of online gambling experts. But how did we narrow down our selection when there are SO many casinos online to choose from today?

It basically comes down to time and effort. We’ve done all of the research for you, and we’ll detail how we make our evaluations for our top picks down below, but there’s one thing that you should know straight out of the gate.

Aside from how we decide which mobile options make the cut, we’re also going to look at how we got to this point in the history of the mobile gambling industry, the types of games and game limitations on mobile, safety and security when playing at mobile online casinos, how to deal with software/device compatibility issues, and all the most frequently asked questions about playing on the go with sites like the ones we recommend.

Hundreds of different online casino options have mobile platforms. In the grand scheme of things, it’s easy to see this as a positive.

However, it very quickly has a negative component when choice paralysis sets in and players have to actually choose somewhere to play mobile casino games for real money.

The huge number of choices available can make it tricky (at best) to do the research needed to find a site that fits what you’re looking for. Our solution to this is to have done all of the research on mobile casino sites for you ahead of time. We present this information to you in our reviews and in our recommendations for where to play.

In what follows, we’re going to break down a number of the things that we use to make these evaluations and to rate and review the best mobile casinos online.

First things first, you have to be able to trust that a casino site is going to be reliable with cash-outs and that they are going to be trustworthy when it comes to settling any type of player disputes.

This includes everything from having straightforward terms of service to avoiding shady conditions on promotions and casino bonus offers.

To this end, there are three main things that we look for when it comes to vetting the mobile casino sites that we review and recommend, and we like to answer the following types of questions along these lines.

• Reputation

• What is the reputation like for this casino? Do they have a lot of player complaints about unfairness? Do players regularly praise how their customer service and other issues are handled? Are they known for quick and reliable cash-outs?

• History

• How long has this site been around? Have they had any scandals break out? Are they a part of a larger group run by the same operator? Have they been re-branded from a different name?

• Licensing

• Where are they licensed? Is the gambling regulatory body reputable? Is the license current? Have they ever lost a license before?

As you can see from this short list of questions, that’s a lot to ask about an individual casino. Trying to do all of that research on your own could take quite some time for a single site, but then you would have to do it for several to compare.

Instead of putting you through all of that, we gather the information for you on the top-rated mobile online casino sites that we recommend, and we put it all in front of you in a simple and easy-to-understand way.

The number of companies that build online casino games for mobile is well into the three-figure range. Several dozen are reputable and build great titles. However, some don’t meet these qualifications, and it can take a lot of time and effort to figure out which is which.

We evaluate these sites based on which software developers have contributed content, how these games are pulled together on a single platform, and how players are able to get in on the action.

This is particularly important for players who care about device compatibility, which tends to be less of an issue with HTML5 mobile casinos (see above). It’s also important for players who want to switch off and play from their computer from time to time as well.

Having a large game selection in terms of quantity is a great thing, but if all of the titles are from names that few people have ever heard of, then they’re likely to not be as high-quality.

We want players to have both quality and quantity when it comes to the portfolio of titles presented in the casinos we recommend, and that’s why we check out what they have available in each genre and sub-genre like mobile slots, mobile blackjack, mobile table games, mobile video poker, and so on.

It’s a bad feeling when you need assistance with something that’s obstructing your ability to play but can’t get it because of poor customer service or support. We make sure that we’re only recommending establishments that have been vetted to make sure that their customer service is helpful.

We look for a few things in this evaluation.

• First, we see if there’s a history of complaints about how players were treated by customer service representatives
• Second, we check to see which common methods of contacting support are available to make sure that they’re accessible and easy to contact
• Third, we look at when the support team is actually available and if customer service is reachable around the clock

There are three common ways to contact support or customer service: email, a telephone call, or a live chat messaging service. If you’re playing casino games from a mobile device, then any of the three can be suitable, but most players prefer the instant access that a telephone call or live chat option will give them, so we put more weight on those.

Moreover, we more highly rate casino sites that have customer service representatives available 24/7. In fact, we tend to be particularly harsh if the hours available for support are limited because we believe if a site is available around the clock, then service for that site should always be available.

In general, one of the biggest advantages of playing in online casinos, whether mobile-friendly or not, is that they tend to have a lot more promotional opportunities than their land-based counterparts.

However, we take this a step further here and look specifically for sites that have good mobile-friendly bonuses. This often includes special terms and conditions that are more favorable for playing from a smartphone or tablet or online casino bonuses that are geared towards players just starting out with lessened restrictions.

For example, you may find that the wagering requirements on a mobile casino bonus are more relaxed. You may even find that the bonus opportunity can only be accessed via mobile play overall.

Either way, and no matter how the deals are structured, we want players to be able to get paid for playing their favorites that they would already be playing anyway.

Some games work really well with the available mobile casino software, and some do not because of a variety of reasons. While casino software developers have made major improvements that allow players to have a better mobile casino experience than ever before, some players will have concerns about certain genres of these games and what it can mean to take your play with you on the go.

Alternatively, there are special types of innovations that have been made that many players may not be aware of that make the mobile experience that much better. We want to take a quick look at each of the major genres and sub-genres of mobile casino games and what playing on the go means for each of them.

In terms of overall popularity, and we mean both from the perspective of the total number of bets placed and the total number of players enjoying the games, the genre of mobile video slots is the key part of the overall game selection that most players will be playing most of the time.

Even with that level of popularity, there are some advantages and disadvantages to playing slots within the mobile space.

Let’s start with the advantages.

• The formats of the games fit very well on mobile screens from the standpoint of the visuals and presentation
• Mobile touchscreen controls are perfect for slots since there are limited amounts of interaction other than setting bet sizes and pressing the spin button
• With HTML5 mobile slots, it’s easy for one version of the same game to be played on both desktop and mobile, which frees up resources for developers to make more titles

And now for the disadvantages.

• As is the case with virtually all game genres, there are usually fewer mobile titles available overall than what are available on a desktop client, but it’s not by a staggering amount in most cases
• Controls for various options can be difficult to manage on a touchscreen interface for providers that have not caught up on the interface trends

It’s worth noting that the world record for the largest online jackpot ever won was picked up on a mobile progressive slot, and it’s also worth pointing out that many casino sites report more slot activity from mobile players than from desktop players at this point.

The mobile online slots genre keeps getting more and more attention, and it has taken over as one of the single most popular sectors of the larger internet casino industry.

Most games at most casinos, whether online or land-based, are slots. That means that a minority are table games, so they’re clearly going to miss out on some of the limelight. However, the mobile gambling industry is far enough along that table games have, to a great degree, been integrated into what’s available for players on the go.

The major issue for table game fans who are interested in playing via mobile is that some games work really well on a mobile format, but some do not. The format of the game and betting itself is usually the cause for this, and it mostly comes down to one key principle.

This means that titles like video poker, blackjack, casino poker, and baccarat are usually pretty easy to produce for mobile because the action and interface can work well on a smaller screen. With games like roulette, keno, and craps, however, the relatively detailed betting grids that are used to place bets don’t always translate well to the mobile interface.

With that in mind, developers have tried hard to come up with solutions. One of those solutions is to have a betting board or table that you can zoom in on with traditional touchscreen gestures like you would if you were zooming in on a picture. While this is more of an issue on smartphones than tablets, since most mobile casino players are playing with a phone, it’s a prevalent issue.

The downside is that this can be difficult to use when placing bets, if the user isn’t careful, because it can lead to situations where the player accidentally places wagers while attempting to zoom and doesn’t realize it until it’s too late. Confirmation screens and other tools can be used to mitigate this, but players should beware that not all developers have caught up on this.

The game selection for mobile live casinos centers primarily around three titles: roulette, baccarat, and blackjack.

However, you will sometimes see other options like casino hold’em depending on where you’re playing. In any event, these games come to you with high-definition video, optional audio feeds, and the ability to chat in real-time with players from across the globe who are also at the same table as you.

Even if you’re familiar with live dealer casino games from the desktop platforms, there are a few things that make the mobile experience different that you should know about before you jump in.

• The games are constantly streaming high-definition audio and video, and this involves the transfer of a lot of data. As such, you should make sure to have a Wi-Fi connection enabled if you’re on a limited data plan whenever you sit down at the live dealer tables via mobile
• Because there’s a lot of audio and video being displayed when you play thanks to the streaming interface, the software can be a serious drain on your battery. You should make note of this increased battery drain and plan accordingly so that you don’t find yourself with a dead device in an inconvenient situation
• The auto sit-out options are usually a bit more aggressive for mobile players to help move the games along at a quick pace since mobile casino players are more likely to have to take a phone call or otherwise be distracted, which would otherwise hold the game up because they weren’t making their betting decisions

All three of these points are pretty straightforward and easy to understand on an intuitive level once you’ve been introduced to them.

With all of that out there, it’s pretty amazing that players can take real-time, live dealer mobile games with them wherever they want to go as long as they have a connection.

This is a level of play that the vast majority of people would have never dreamed of when the industry first started up. It just goes to show how far the online casino world, and the mobile sector in particular, have come in a relatively short period of time.

The topic of security is always important when it comes to anything that involves transferring real money online, and this is especially true for gambling in mobile casinos where someone could try to get into your account and steal your funds or purposefully lose with your account balance.

When you choose a mobile casino site that has a strong reputation like the ones that we recommend, then you don’t have to worry much about their side of the security equation. This is because it’s in their licensing that they have to use high-level encryption and data security practices to make sure that your personal details stay safe.

If an online casino drops their standards below what’s considered acceptable for their licensing, then their license can actually be pulled, and they can also be fined.

This type of thing is why strong regulation is the cornerstone of fairness and security at online casinos in today’s industry.

That leaves the player’s side of the equation, and we’re going to offer up a few quick mobile casino gaming tips that can help you keep your account secure if you like to play while you’re out and about.

We highly recommend that players create a dedicated email address that is only used for sign-ups at online casinos, and this includes the sites where you play via mobile. Do not let anyone else know this email address, and don’t share it or use it for anything else. Here’s why.

Most common techniques to try to compromise your account involve getting into your email address first. If people don’t know what the email address is for your mobile casino accounts, then they can’t target it in the first place.

Along these lines, you should use a different username and password than you do anywhere else as well. If someone discovers a username and a password for you from other sites or by looking over your shoulder while you log into something else, you don’t want them to be able to try to use that information to successfully log into your account at your favorite mobile casino site.

We live in a culture that puts a lot of focus on keeping things as convenient as possible. Many mobile casino apps will have options to help keep things convenient as well by allowing you to save your username and/or password so that you can log in quicker when you run the app.

However, this is a terrible idea from a security standpoint. Anyone who gains access to your phone can log straight into your account at your favorite mobile online casino right away, and you’ve essentially handed over your account for them on a silver platter.

It is absolutely critical that you never, under any circumstances, set mobile casino applications to remember even just your username. This is because, as we saw in tip #1, if a shady person gets access to your username, that gives them one of the two pieces of guarded information that they need to gain access to your account and your funds.

Along similar lines, you should not keep your casino-only email from tip #1 logged in or saved anywhere on your phone.

On the same motif of convenience being the enemy of security, many people choose to not have their phone locked when it’s not in use. Effectively, this means that as soon as someone gains access to your phone in the physical sense, you have a crisis on your hands. As such, we have to make the following strong recommendation.

If you have a mobile casino app on your phone, even if you don’t keep your information saved on it, you should always keep your phone locked when it’s not being used.

Why make it easy for a smartphone thief to access your mobile account?

This is a tip that will surprise a lot of mobile casino players, but logging in and playing mobile casino titles on public Wi-Fi is just begging for your log-in information to be stolen.

While there’s a lot of technical jargon that could be used to explain the ins and outs of why it’s such a bad idea, the bottom line is this: It’s not that difficult for a shady individual to sent to the router they are using to host the public Wi-Fi and to analyze it as it’s being sent off to the rest of the internet.

One term for this type of scheme is “packet sniffing,” and the basic idea is that it’s possible to pull your log-in information from the data being sent across the wireless router.

The good news is that, unless you’re playing mobile live dealer casino games, not that much data is used when playing most mobile slots or table games, so you can often do without using public Wi-Fi and just stick to your own data plan.

More people are using mobile devices each year than ever before. In fact, more people primarily use smartphones and tablets to browse the internet and check their email than they use computers these days.

The same shift towards the mobile sector has happened in the gaming industry in general as well, and that includes how people gamble online.

Many online casinos report that they are having more bets placed via mobile players than via desktop players. What’s more is that the shift keeps going more and more in favor of the mobile gambling side of things when year-on-year comparisons are made, and that especially goes for casino players.

In light of the fact that people are choosing mobile over desktop in the general sense, there are also a few specific points that make it even more the case for mobile casino fans.

• The switch from Adobe Flash to HTML5 for mobile casino games has drastically increased the compatibility levels with different types of smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices
• Software providers and casino operators have made it easier than ever to manage your account with deposits and withdrawals, contacting customer service, and claiming bonuses via mobile
• Casino game developers have been aggressive with putting together interfaces that work better on the smaller screens of mobile devices, especially for mobile slots and table games with a lot of intricate parts like craps or roulette

We’re going to take a closer look at each one of these points in what follows, but it’s important to note that the shift towards mobile casino titles has largely followed what our culture as a whole has been doing as we get away from computers being our primary way of interacting with the internet.

The online gambling industry as a whole really started in the mid-1990s, and with regards to the mobile sector, you can break that history up into four parts.

A key part of understanding what’s important in a mobile casino site is understanding all of the shortcomings of how we got to this point in the progressive of the mobile sector.

Each of the four eras shown above have important lessons for players and anyone else interested in what the best mobile casinos have to offer today.

In the very beginning of the online gambling industry, there were no options to play via mobile devices because mobile devices couldn’t handle the games anyway. However, there is a very important lesson to be learned from this era regardless.

Gambling will always follow the available technologies. When a new technology becomes popular, someone will figure out how to gamble on it, and casinos will spring up almost immediately.

There’s something in us as human beings as a group that makes us want to gamble, and we can see that if we look back in history and see just how many different ways to gamble have been invented over millennia. By the mid-1990s, the internet had started gaining a foothold with lots of households having access in their homes, and that led directly to the explosion of online casinos.

The reason this lesson is so important to seeing what’s going on with mobile casinos is that the same exact thing has happened: The more mobile technologies that become available, the more options you get for playing at casino sites using those technologies.

The first mobile phones that could run any type of outside software used the Java Runtime Environment, known as the JRE for short. As you might expect, some of the most popular applets that ran on these early phones were for mobile casino games, but they had a number of major limitations.

You usually had to download and install one game at a time to your phone. Additionally, the phone screens were so small that special versions of many games had to be created. The most popular way of handling this was to make a three-reel version of a popular five-reel video slot, and this was the source of the earliest mobile slot titles as well.

In fact, slots were most of what were run on these early versions of mobile casino software because the phone screens had so little room and so little flexibility that virtually nothing else worked out well.

In the early 2000s, a shift in the online casino software industry more or less determined the direction that the rest of the mobile side of things would go. This shift was that developers started getting away from installation programs that actually put online casino software on computers and instead switched to no-download casinos using Adobe Flash-based apps that would run in a web browser.

Not long afterwards, we started seeing mobile phones that could run Adobe Flash apps and run web browsers as well. That meant that these phones could run the same web-based casino software in a lot of cases, and as soon as developers figured that out, the mobile online casino industry exploded nearly overnight.

If we had to put our finger on one point in time that started the push towards the modern mobile online casino games that we see today, then this would be it.

No longer stuck with the incredibly limited and incredibly boring Java-based applets of the past, players found that they could enjoy mobile casino games for the first time that were competitive with the titles they could play on computers.

Adobe Flash dominated the internet for a pretty significant period of time ranging from 10 to 15 years. However, it was eventually discovered that there were fundamental problems with Flash from a software engineering standpoint that meant completely securing it would be virtually impossible and that efforts to do so would become more and more futile over time.

It’s obvious that this is not ideal for playing at online casinos, security being as critical as it is, so a big switch was very much called for. This switch came in the form of HTML5, which followed the majority of multimedia-centric websites making the same change.

There are a few key advantages of HTML5 mobile casinos over the older style that use Flash. These show you just how critical it is to only play with mobile sites that use this newer platform.

• from a security standpoint, and HTML5 is much more solid by comparison
• HTML5 mobile casino games can run faster with more intensive graphics using the same mobile device compared to those built with Flash
• All of the newest games from the most reputable developers are built with HTML5, and Flash has been largely abandoned when it comes to the development of newer games as a result

There’s one more key lesson that can be learned from how we ended up in the modern era of mobile casino play: The better platform for players will always win in the casino industry.

At this stage in the game, HTML5 mobile online casinos are the best that the industry has to offer. They have the highest level of device compatibility, and there’s no issue with screen size differences between tablets and smartphones. Moreover, they provide the best graphics and overall presentation that you can find in the mobile space.

When we talked about the Adobe Flash era of mobile casino software up above, we pointed out how games and casino software that were based around Flash would often have compatibility issues since they could only really be designed for a narrow number of devices. With the big push for HTML5 as a replacement platform, most of these concerns have been mitigated.

While most devices can run HTML5 mobile casino games through their web browser, some still haven’t caught up, and some still can have situations where they are preferred for one device type or mobile operating system over others. We want to help you to avoid any compatibility problems, so we’ve avoided the issue with a simple decree.

Virtually all of the top sites are like that these days, but that wasn’t always the case. Some of them wanted native apps that could be downloaded through each operating systems’ respective store applications, but that quickly fell by the wayside when it was discovered that a new version of the software would have to be added and updated to add new games, new promotions, and other goodies.

All of those updates were big drains on company resources, so they decided to go with the web-based approach instead.

In what follows, we’re going to take a look at some of the most popular questions that we have seen asked about playing casinos on mobile devices.

Not all licensing jurisdictions are created equal in the online casino world, and that goes for mobile-friendly sites as well.

A good jurisdiction will have strict requirements of its casino operators according to current industry guidelines. A bad jurisdiction, however, will hardly be more than a rubber stamp with no real accountability.

Along these lines, the particularly notable jurisdictions that allow play for individuals from a variety of countries include the United Kingdom, Malta, the Isle of Man, and Gibraltar. They make up the top tier of jurisdictions, and any site licensed by any of these four respective regulatory bodies will be trustworthy with both customer service and processing withdrawals quickly.

In the early days of Java- or Flash-based mobile casino apps, players always had to handle their deposits, withdrawals, and bonuses through a desktop computer account to the same casino they were playing with on their phones. A lot of players had experience with or heard about those early versions of mobile casino software on phones, and that left a bad taste in their mouths along these lines.

Thankfully, that’s not the case with modern software, especially the web-based apps that run using HTML5 with a high level of compatibility across virtually all modern mobile devices.

Anything that you can do on your desktop account, you can now do using your smartphone or iPad tablet. That includes everything from browsing promotions, making deposits, requesting withdrawals, checking on the status of your bonuses, and anything else that you could imagine.

Along these lines, you can also contact the support team. This includes the use of in-app live chat messenger services, which happens to be the most popular overall option for contacting the customer service teams of mobile casinos.

A simple interface will show up that looks a lot like a text/SMS messaging app, and you’ll be put into a real-time conversation with someone who will work with you to get your session back on track and help you with whatever you need.

Because everything has been largely switched over to HTML5 for mobile casino apps, at least from the reputable and top-rated sites, you can get away with using virtually any modern smartphone or tablet, even if it’s several generations old. This includes every generation of the iPhone, for example.

All you really need to do with your device is meet the following requirements.

• Have an updated web browser that can run HTML5 games
• Have a connection that’s on, whether it’s Wi-Fi or mobile data
• Have a functioning touchscreen

Here are a few things that aren’t requirements, strictly speaking, but they are recommended since they can make your mobile casino experience much more enjoyable.

• Have a portable charger for your phone or tablet in case your battery starts to die mid-session
• Have the casino software installed on your desktop computer in case you need to access your account due to your phone being lost or stolen
• Have a simple notes file on your phone that includes the names of your favorite games, particularly if you play mobile online slots, because it’s easy to forget them if they’re new to you

Again, you obviously aren’t required to do any of these three, but we highly recommend them.

If you find that your mobile device is lost or stolen, then what you should do depends on what level of security you were keeping for yourself beforehand. If your phone was locked down without any information saved, without any email log-in information saved, and without any indication of what any of your information may be, then you most likely don’t have anything to worry about.

However, if you scrimped on the security and find yourself without your device, then here are a few things to consider.

• You will likely want to change your account password as quickly as possible, and this could also include changing the password on your casino-only email address
• Alerting the support team of your mobile casino as to what happened with your device can also be useful since that will better allow them to catch any suspicious activity on your account like someone logging in and trying to clean out your account in a way that’s outside of the realm of how you would normally play
• The nuclear option is to ask for your account to be closed and your full account balance cashed out, but it may be the most comforting if you’re not overly attached to that one particular casino

No one wants to think that this type of situation will happen to them, and while we wish that no one had to go through this, it definitely does happen to some people some of the time. This is why we strongly recommend that players keep their phones and their accounts locked down along the lines of what we’ve recommended above.

It’s incredible that we can log in and play our favorite casino games via mobile from just about anywhere. The level of technology that we have now is great, but it has come from a lot of work and a lot of changes throughout the history of the mobile side of the business.

We started with the Java-based games that weren’t very appealing to a lot of players. In fact, they lacked in popularity for a lot of the same reasons that smartwatch casino games would fail several years later. These Java titles were supplanted by those produced by Adobe Flash, and in turn, Flash was replaced by HTML5, which is the current standard for mobile casino games.

Along with mobile HTML5 casinos came the ability to manage your account more easily through the web-based apps, but this came at the price of chances for thieves and other shady individuals to get into your phone and cause havoc on your account, which is why we have stronger necessary security practices for our devices than we used to back in the Java days.

What may be the most amazing aspect of our current state of mobile casino games is that we have access to thousands of games in tons of genres and sub-genres, so they really do appeal to a huge range of players. If you’re a mobile penny slot fan or a high-roller mobile live dealer baccarat player, you can equally enjoy yourself to the max on your smartphone or tablet.

Just make sure you play it safe and stick with our recommendations for the BEST mobile online casinos. There’s no need to play anywhere else.